With that, Grandmother, dog, and stump were gone, and all three candles blew out with a rush of wind, leaving the trio entirely in the dark.
Chapter Nine
Once I was young, as you saw me then
A bright fire, no moment’s spark
Bright as the sun, but that was when
It was early morn, as said the lark
“SO, WHAT DID THAT ALL MEAN?” ASKED SUSAN AS SHE WAS USHERED into Audrey’s taxi, with both Vivien and Merlin joining her in the back. She noted the blackthorn stick had been returned to its position above the sun visors, and Audrey winked at her in welcome. “And I thought we were going to have lunch in your staffroom?”
“We’ll get something somewhere,” said Vivien, who had hurried them up from the subterranean regions and out through the bookshop proper, pushing Susan past Eric and another bookseller, a woman, who had both attempted to make conversation. “They always have terrible sandwiches here. Anchovy paste, that sort of thing.”
“Awful,” said Merlin. “Look, I need to get changed; why don’t we stop by my place and have something sent up. I think I can stand the doings this once.”
“Have something sent up? The doings?”
“Merlin lives in a hotel,” said Vivien. “We own it, but it’s room only, any meals are strictly charged. Northumberland House; it’s near the Old Bookshop, and very necessary for the young left-handed, who are almost without exception domestically useless—”
“Oi!” exclaimed Audrey.
“I said almost without exception, you being one of them,” replied Vivien. “Besides, you never lived there, did you?”
“Not to mention, not all that young,” whispered Merlin to Susan.
“Always lived with my ma on Grove Road, reckon I always will,” said Audrey, ignoring Merlin’s barb. “Except for Wooten, of course, and when I was up at Durham.”
“The university? And what’s Wootton—is that from the Tolkien story, ‘Smith of Wootton Major’?” asked Susan. “I thought you were all one big extended family, living in a haunted house or something—but you all have different accents. . . .”
“Go on, Viv, explain; you’re the right-handed one,” said Audrey, accelerating madly to exploit a momentary opportunity to insert the cab into the continuous artery of traffic pulsing along Park Lane. “Yeah, I did two years of history at Durham, dropped out to join a band; I’m a drummer, see? Northumberland House, is it? I hope there’s no trouble with the lions in Trafalgar Square.”
“What!” exclaimed Susan, leaping forward, almost thrusting her head through the hatch, causing Audrey to brake and the cab close behind to swing around them with a blare of the horn, narrowly missing their rear bumper. “The lions? The statues?”
“A joke,” said Audrey, the cab clicking as she accelerated to get back in the flow. “What with those urchins having a go at you and all. The lions don’t walk in daytime, and never in May.”
“But they do walk sometimes?” asked Susan, sitting back as Audrey swung the cab off Park Lane and into the lane by the rather ugly 1960s London Hilton, to cut through to Piccadilly and avoid the traffic choking to a halt as it fed into the Hyde Park Corner roundabout. “It’s only . . . my mother . . . she always made us visit Trafalgar Square, and she’d lean against a lion and tell stories . . . what I thought was make-believe, fun for a little girl, about the lions coming awake.”
“The statues don’t actually animate or move,” said Merlin. “The things we call the lions were there long before the statues, or the square, or the city. They don’t really look like lions. But they’re fierce, and hunt in prides, and roar. And they like raw meat. Not fun for anyone. But they sleep deeply, and do not rouse of their own accord.”
“I think Mum must have known something about the Old World—”
“To answer your question about us being one big extended family,” interrupted Vivien quickly. “We are more of a dispersed clan. We all have one non-bookseller parent, you see. It’s rather like being an extreme Catholic, because when you marry in, you have to agree to the children being raised a particular way. Which means going to school at Wooten Hall—spelled with one t and an e, not like the Tolkien story, but I reckon he must have got wind of it somehow. Fantasy writers, they’re the bane of our existence! Wooten Hall is in Gloucestershire; we board there from age seven. That’s why we have different accents; they’re all pretty much fixed by the time you’re seven, and of course, we’d go home in the holidays and reinforce it. Though some people, and I name no names . . . cough . . . Audrey . . . like to ham their natural ones up a bit more.”
“Bit of Cockney’s good for a massive tip from the Americans,” said Audrey. “You wouldn’t Adam and Eve it, how they part with the bees and honey—”
She stopped, chuckling, as a unanimous groan filled the car.
“I don’t know how you make time to take normal passengers,” said Vivien. “Or find the gall. What’ll you do if Merrihew finds out?”
“Split the takings,” said Audrey promptly. “Merrihew’s a pirate at heart. Long as I don’t mess up anything operational, of course. Which I’d never do.”
Susan was digesting the information about the booksellers’ parents, but also what the Grandmother had said. She had noticed Vivien didn’t want to talk about that, or about her mother, which meant Susan’s parentage overall. At least not in the Old Bookshop, and not in the taxi. Which suggested she didn’t want Audrey or any other booksellers to know.
“So, talking about fathers—” she started, a little mischievously. As she expected, Vivien interrupted her immediately.
“Let’s not have lunch at the Northumberland,” she said. “The food is generally pretty bad. There’s a quiet pub I know nearby—”
“I thought you were broke,” said Merlin.
“I am,” said Vivien indignantly. “You can pay.”
“We can get some burgers sent to my room,” said Merlin. “Won’t have to settle till the end of the month.”
“I’ll pay, provided no one goes overboard,” said Susan. “I got paid yesterday.”
“Oh good,” said Merlin, while Vivien said, “You will not! Merlin has money, but he doesn’t want to spend it.”
“Anyway, I wanted to ask about your father,” said Susan as Merlin muttered something about sisters, but did not deny that he might, in fact, have some money. “Who is he?”
“He’s an archaeologist. Met Mum on a dig where . . . things went wrong . . . she saved his life, they fell in love. But it’s hard to be married to one of us. They kind of drifted apart, and of course once we went away to school . . .”
“We see him every now and then,” said Merlin, with a complete absence of filial devotion in his voice. “Richard Upbright’s his name; he’s quite a well-known archaeologist. He’s professor of European prehistory at Cambridge.”
“Merlin Upbright,” said Susan, experimentally.
Merlin shuddered. “Don’t, please.”